Emirates launches A380 to Brisbane, gives Auckland A380 trifecta

Emirates A380s begin flying to Brisbane while Auckland will host three at one time. (Mehdi Nazarinia)

From October 2 Emirates will begin operating its flagship Airbus A380s to Brisbane when the airline’s EK434 and EK435 services between Auckland, Brisbane and Dubai are upgraded from the 777-300ER.

Adding the Airbus A380 to one of Emirates’ two daily Brisbane services will see an increase in capacity of 132 seats for sale per flight and 1,848 week.

Emirates’ regional senior vice president Salem Obaidalla said: “Australia represents an important market for Emirates and ranks in the top three countries on Emirates’ global network. Central to this relationship is the ongoing support for tourism and trade provided by adding larger capacity aircraft between our two countries, and a fourth A380 for Australia will further complement our partnership with Qantas.”

The announcement of the service upgrade comes as Emirates and Qantas prepare to extend their alliance to trans-Tasman services following approval by the New Zealand government last week. It caps off a range of recent upgrades to Emirates’ Australian services, including the introduction of a daily Melbourne A380, a daily Adelaide service and a three times daily Perth service. A second A380 for Sydney from June has also been announced.

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Emirates’ A380s have so far carried 14 million passengers on 35,000 trips spanning 200 million kilometres since the aircraft’s introduction five years ago. In 2012 alone, Emirates added 11 A380s to its fleet and now has 31 in service and 59 on order.